Monthly Archives: January 2016

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The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal is now available to watch in English on Hulu and Neon Alley. Act 12, Enemy – Queen Metalia, has the Sailor Guardians facing off against Queen Beryl. A big change in that fight occurs here when compared to the manga, which lead to some controversy with the fans. This episode also sees Sailor Moon fighting with Evil Tuxedo Mask in a fairly heart wrenching scene.

The Shitennou make their final living appearance this week. In the manga they were killed off one by one through the series but in Sailor Moon Crystal they were kept around for… what exactly? A fairly brief exchange with the Sailor Guardians that doesn’t lead to much. Ultimately the story of Sailor Moon Crystal is so faithful to the manga that there isn’t much room for changing the story at this point.

Next week is Act 13, Final Battle – Reincarnation, which is the final full episode of the Dark Kingdom story arc. This could be considered the finale of the first story arc though we won’t see this chapter fully concluded until Act 14, which is at once a finale and premiere.

Sailor Starlight Pullip dolls have been announced on the official Sailor Moon site! The Sailor Starlights Sailor Star Maker, Sailor Star Fighter and Sailor Star Healer join many other Pullip dolls already released. There isn’t much in the way of details at this time as we don’t have a date or price for these, though the price point would likely be the same as other dolls, costing between $150 and $180 US when released domestically.

Pullip dolls are high quality very expensive dolls with disproportionally large heads and eyes for their size. Different model Pullip dolls are used for different basic figures. Most Sailor Moon characters are Pullip dolls while Chibiusa and Sailor Saturn are Dal dolls, which are a bit smaller as the basic model is of Pullip’s sister. Tuxedo Mask is a Taeyang doll, which is Pullip’s boyfriend. One has to wonder if the Sailor Starlights would have alternate costumes as the Three Lights or, if such a doll were planned, if they would make male Taeyang dolls for the Three Lights Seiya, Yaten and Taiki. Many of the other Sailor Guardians had civilian costumes as Bandai Premium exclusives.

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This Friday on the latest English dubbed episode of Sailor Moon Crystal the Sailor Guardians will face off against Queen Beryl and evil Tuxedo Mask! Act 12, Enemy – Queen Metalia, will be available this Friday at 9pm Eastern Time, 6pm Pacific Time, on Hulu and Neon Alley. Queen Beryl and her hair are proving to be a serious villain! We’re getting real close to the end of the Dark Kingdom story arc. There are some major changes from the manga in this episode which upset some fans.

This episode will also feature a new scene by the Shitennou, who were dead at this point in the original manga. A must see for Sailor Guardian/Shitennou shippers!

A quick note about the title. The original Japanese title of Act 12 was “Enemy – Queen Metaria”. There has been constant confusion about what her name should be, although I think it seems fairly obvious that her name is a reference to metal. All instances of her name in the subtitles have shown her as being Metalia, and this is the name used for the updated dub title, and so that is the one I will use here. The tag I use for the episode uses the original Japanese title, and will be left like that for simplicity’s sake. You were using the convenient and excessive number of tags I use for things like characters and episodes, right?

There was a live streaming event this morning in Japan, related to the upcoming Infinity arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. Art was shown, but since we’d seen that earlier this week this was not a big revelation. We did not get any details about a schedule for the series but we did get cast information for the upcoming season. Junko Minagawa, the voice of Sailor Uranus and Sayaka Ohara, the voice of Sailor Neptune, joined the event. The actress voicing Sailor Saturn, Fujii Yukiyo, showed up momentarily via a separate video.

In addition to this the actors playing the Death Busters, including the Witches 5, were announced. A full cast list, with IMDB links, is included below.

I don’t watch much newer anime but a lot of these voice actors have a great deal of experience from recent years. MoonSisters.org posted a nice summary of all of their works on their Facebook Page. Most noteable is Takaya Hashi, who will be voicing Pharaon 90, who played a few small characters in the original Sailor Moon anime. He played Astronomer Dr. Sergai Ajimov in episode 120 of Sailor Moon S and the ventriloquist in the Sailor Moon SuperS Special.

Another odd thing was the inclusion of Cyprene but not Ptilol. In the recent musical Un Nouveau Voyage only Cyprene appeared, though Cyprene and Ptilol, twins, appeared together in the manga and original Sailor Moon anime. Assuming Sailor Moon Crystal will continue to be faithful to the manga it seems only logical that Ptilol will also be making an appearance. If this is the case she will likely also be voiced by Umeka Shouji.

Also announced at the event this morning was “The Exhibition of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon” in Tokyo from April 16th to June 19th. This exhibit will have stuff from the Sailor Moon comics and anime as well as merchandise for sale.

An image of the Infinity arc’s art was revealed, but as this was the same we’d seen earlier this week this wasn’t really anything new. We continue to wait for some confirmation of a timeline for the new episodes. At this point we can only speculate as to when it will be released.

Thanks to Twitter user @aers00 for streaming the event. I was unable to view the feed on Niconico and so I was happy to have an option to watch it while showering and getting ready this morning. I hope others who were looking to do the same found the feed as well.

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars have been released on Hulu and Neon Alley. Episode 178 and 179 were accidentally released early last Thursday but were taken down after a day, returning once again this morning. This week we get a great Yaten episode and a so so Taiki episode. I hope everyone loves shipping Luna with Yaten!!

Episode 178, Luna’s Discovery: The Real Face of Yaten, is an episode in which I don’t believe Luna actually learns that Yaten is Sailor Star Healer as the title seems to insinuate. It is possible that the title is not a reference to Luna learning Yaten’s secret identity but instead seeing his true self under the hard exterior he puts on. More on that later. This episode is all about shipping Luna and Yaten! What a lovely couple! We know that Luna is into humans from the Sailor Moon S movie. We can also infer from her jealousy of Artemis and the Nun she thought he was into as being a further sign of her acceptance that cats can be attracted to humans. When Luna goes missing it turns out that she’s been with Yaten, living the good life, riding around in limos, overhearing conversations about their mission that don’t reveal a ton. Yaten is shooting a movie with a really terrible woman name Noriko Okamachi, an actress who is always carrying around her persian cat. She hits on Yaten but is quickly shot down. She later accuses him of being gay for turning her down, which causes Luna to scratch her face. Meanwhile Luna has been dressed up in some adorable/ridiculous girly clothes! Iron Mouse show up and takes Noriko’s star seed. The episode title insinuates that Luna sees Yaten transform, but this does not appear to happen. Luna is injured and left by Yaten who then runs some distance before transforming, seemingly while no one is watching. Naturally should he have transformed in front of a cat, that probably wasn’t something he considered a security risk, but we know it would have been. During the fight Sailor Star Healer mentions a cat and Sailor Moon asks if it’s Luna, to which she responds that it sounds like a nice name. The next day at school Yaten sees Usagi with Luna, referring to her by name. He really should be putting two and two together and figuring out that Usagi is Sailor Moon at this point, but that is a discovery for another time by another person.

Episode 179, Friend or Foe? Star Lights and the Sailor Guardians, has a brief appearance by Haruka and Michiru. Great, so where’s Hotaru? Ah no of course we don’t see her. More on them next week! This episode is not about these cool characters we like. It’s about Taiki. Who likes this guy? He read poetry in this episode! Wow what a sensitive guy. Taiki seems to be all about slumming it on bad TV so he’s doing a cooking show this week, and Makoto comes along. This is a bad choice as the producers have clearly not properly vetted their guest to discover that she’s actually completely terrified of being on camera. Usagi to the rescue who manages to pretty much blow up the studio in a cooking mishap. The enemy is Sailor Chef and we see Taiki transform but we kind of already did a Taiki episode so there’s nothing really novel here. This episode includes a special sneak appearance by two new Sailor Animamates Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow. They are visible only briefly and partially obscured as we learn that Sailor Iron Mouse is doing a terrible job and is apparently replaceable. Oh no!

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We’ve got a lot of official art for the upcoming new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal which include Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. These come to us in the form of an image from the official site and art from the cover of notebooks and folders showing new designs for Sailor Moon Crystal. We had previously shown a black and white version of the main image, as it had been seen in a magazine photo. We can now confirm this image’s authenticity as this was posted to the animation section of the official site.

In addition some Sailor Moon stationary items have been revealed on the official site with art of the new characters. This includes a large image showing the full cast as well as a series of smaller images which are of notebook covers and clear file folders, many of which show the new characters Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn.

What do you think of the new art style? I find it a bit odd that there is almost no shading on any of the characters’ faces. In one image I would think maybe this was just the lighting of that specific scene, but this seems consistent over all of the images seen today. Even the clothes themselves are almost all white with little shading on them. The image lacks a certain sense of depth and doesn’t look like something I would expect from official art. The variable thickness of lines makes for an interesting look which I like. I think Hotaru’s hair looks a bit short, but changing the style a bit really isn’t something I’m concerned about.

We should see more on Wednesday with the live streaming event. Stay tuned!

A question came up recently in the comments to a post on the site about Act 10 of Sailor Moon Crystal, where the gang travel to Moon to see the remnants of Silver Millennium, the Kingdom which existed on the Moon in the ancient past. If such a place existed, wouldn’t people be able to see it? Wouldn’t NASA or the Russian Space Agency have seen it? When not running a Sailor Moon site I do a science and skepticism podcast, The Reality Check, and this seemed like a perfect topic to cover on that show. If you’re interested in giving that a listen, check out episode 385 of The Reality Check. The final segment of this week’s show covers the topic of whether or not we could see the remains of the Apollo missions on the Moon, from the Earth, using a telescope. The show title doesn’t mention it but I also used this opportunity to explore the plausibility of seeing the remains of Silver Millennium through a telescope, using similar logic.

For those who aren’t into listening to a full podcast to get the low down, I’ll sum up my findings below. So much to say there isn’t a clear answer, and we might be able to see it depending on its size, but it is something which could be easily missed.

While I love this episode, it still doesn’t make much sense to me why no one on Earth never noticed there was these huge ruins of a palace on the moon. You’d think NASA or the Russian space agency would have picked up on this or something. Is there some magic force field protecting it from being detected? But neither the manga nor Crystal ever seems to explain this at all and you’re just left to assume NASA just never found it for some reason. This made a little more sense in the 90s anime where they traveled back in time to get to the Moon Kingdom ruins.

This reminded me of claims I’d heard that you couldn’t see the remains of the Apollo mission on the Moon through a telescope. This was a frequent idea brought up by conspiracy theorists who believe man did not land on the Moon. If we went up there, shouldn’t we be able to look at the flag we left there through a telescope? Or see the rovers and other debris left behind by the missions? The largest thing left of the moon is the base of a Lunar lander which is 4 meters wide and with legs spreading out to be about 9 meters. Apollo missions 15, 16 and 16 left rovers which were about 2x3m in size.

What size would something have to be, on the Moon, in order for us to see it with a powerful telescope? Luckily Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has already crunched the numbers for this using as an example the Hubble Telescope. There’s a bunch of math involved, which I get into on the show, and can also be found at the Bad Astronomy blog, but so much to say the further away an item is, the harder it is to see, obviously. The larger the lens of your telescope, the better your power at resolving things is. To see something on the Moon with the Hubble Telescope, which has a 2.4 meter mirror, something that is about 100 meters across would basically resolve to a single point. Practically speaking something would need to be about 200 meters in order to be seen on its own.

This works both ways. Think of Rita Repulsa sitting on the Moon looking down through her telescope at what the Power Rangers are doing and making out small details. This is totally unrealistic as her tiny telescope is considerably smaller than the Hubble Space Telescope and she is making out objects much smaller than 100m. An average Power Ranger is probably about 2m tall and much smaller when seen from above while standing.

All said we can use shadows to see more detail. As the sun sets on the Moon it will leave a long shadow of the object in question. This means even a smaller object could leave a shadow large enough to see, if the conditions are right.

So much to say, we can’t see anything left from the Apollo missions on the Moon through the Hubble Telescope. There is something else we could use however! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) flew just 31 miles above the Moon’s surface. This is much lower than a satellite would have been able to fly over the Earth’s surface due to atmospheric drag, but the atmosphere on the Moon is nearly non existent so this isn’t a concern at such a height. This took great photos, the kind more comparable to what we’d see on Google Maps, so we were actually able to make out what was left by the Apollo missions with these photos, as can be seen at the following link.

Back to the original question. Can we see the ruins of Silver Millennium? That depends. We don’t actually have specifics of the size. If this were a full city thriving we could probably make something out, but it appears to be somewhat small in size and sort of ruined. People like to measure things in football fields. One football field is 100m, which is too small to resolve, but a number of football fields is something we could just barely make out, if we knew what we were looking for.

Silver Millennium is composed of a large castle surrounded by some buildings, as seen from the above photo. We don’t have a specific sense of scale but we can use the largest castles and palaces on Earth to infer how big it would be if it were quite large. Prague Castle on Earth is 130x570m. This wouldn’t show up as much of anything on a telescope. The Palace of Parliament is some 270x240m, which also could just be a few dots in a telescope. Let’s assume Silver Millennium is at most about twice that, based on what we see in Act 10, and we might be it at about 500x500m. A square kilometre would be big, and that is considerably smaller than an average city on Earth. Its actually quite possible to fit a castle and surrounding buildings in a space smaller than a football field, so there’s still a possibility it would not resolve at all.

Adding to this the kingdom is in decay. Back in the day Silver Millennium was full of lakes and green vegetation but now it is grey and looks like stone. We don’t know exactly how old it is but even over a few thousand years it should be decently well preserved on a planet devoid of life. We see evidence of impacts on the surface of the Moon but there are a lot more on the far side. The reason we see more on the Moon than on Earth is because there is no life and geological activity to mask those signs like there are here on Earth. That said, it is stated quite clearly in the Sailor Moon manga and Sailor Moon Crystal that Silver Millennium was turned to stone after being destroyed. Because of that, it would be hard to make out much of anything, in an image that is barely above what resolves, if we were even knowing what to look for.

You probably couldn’t see the remains of Silver Millennium on the Moon with a telescope, given its small size and how similar its grey rock colour would look to the Moon’s surface. This may change slightly when the Castle is rebuilt after the Dark Kingdom is destroyed, but it would still be hard to see even for someone who knew exactly where to look for it, which in this case is somewhere in the 674 km wide Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity). Looking for its shadow at just the right time would probably produce something visible, given precise timing and looking at the right place. All said it is quite plausible, in a realistic context of the show, that the ruins of Silver Millennium were never found by any amateur astronomers or space agencies.

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal has been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we get Act 11, Reunion – Endymion. A mysterious new boy Endo is in town and he happens to look exactly like Mamoru only his eyes are red so there’s just no way it’s him. Mamouru and Motoki, while under evil influences, appear to have a romantic interest in each other where such a thing was not previously insinuated. This is problematic not because is it showing a same sex relationship, but because it associates that relationship with the characters being evil. Ignoring all else, one could get the impression based on this coupling that homosexuality is evil, or that evil characters were more likely to be homosexual. Given the relationships found between same sex characters elsewhere in the series it seems evident to me that this is not the position of the author Naoko Takeuchi and not what is meant to be shown here. All said, taking this relationship on its own one can see why it is potentially controversial.

Next week is Act 12, Enemy – Queen Metalia, as things get real and the gang faces off against Queen Beryl. We are getting close to wrapping up the Dark Kingdom story arc.

The official Japanese Sailor Moon site has referenced the upcoming Infinity story arc of Sailor Moon Crystal as “Season 3″ in a news posting about next Wednesday’s streaming event. Since the announcement of new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal a semantic confusion has been gripping the fandom! Some referred to this third story arc as “Season 3″ while others called it “Season 2″, the first 26 episodes having only taken place over a year, it seems logical to refer to them as a single season. Further adding to the confusion Hulu refers to the first 26 episodes as “Season 1″ on their site. If they add the new episodes as “Season 2″, this could be a problem. I personally chose to follow the Japanese convention of calling it a 3rd “Phase”, intentionally avoiding the confusing term season, but now we are safe to officially refer to this as the 3rd season. Fear not! As always I will strive to be as unconfusing as possible in my posts.

As previously reported, the streaming event will take place next Wednesday January 27th at 8pm Japan Standard Time, 6am Easter Time, 3am Pacific Time on Niconico. The post on the site was to mention that Kotono Mitsuishi, the original voice of Sailor Moon, will be making an appearance at the event. We will keep you advised of any details which we learn on Wednesday.

This Friday the next English dubbed episode of Sailor Moon Crystal will be released. As with every week the episode will be available at 9pm Eastern Time, 6pm Pacific Time, on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we get Act 11, Reunion – Endymion. Last we saw Mamoru was dead. Now there’s a new guy in town who looks exactly like him, but with slightly different eyes and who likes Motoki a lot more than he used to.